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Tuesday, 14 April 2015

Little Britain: The Death of the Sspecial Rrelationship?

London, United Kingdom.
14 April. Is the Special Relationship
finally dead? This city of cranes, this
monument to super-wealth, in which new gilded towers soar ever upwards on every
street corner in the pursuit of Mammon, is the very picture of prosperity and
Britain’s still extant global interests.
And yet behind the cathedrals of plate glass that surround me all is not
well. Britain’s Little Britain politicians in their Little Britain election campaign seem to care little about the real
world beyond their rhetoric and understand even less. Instead, every ingredient of substance is
tossed like a French omelette for the sake of narrow political gain. Yesterday,
it was the turn of the Anglo-American ‘Special Relationship’ to be given the Chicken
Little sky-is-falling-in electoral treatment by the Press. They may have a point.

The
Times ran a story entitled “America reconsiders special
relationship with Britain”. Normally we
Brits always tend to use the upper case for the Relationship, whilst the
Americans (and The Times) see the
relationship very much in the lower case.
It concerned a paper completed for the Congressional Research Service (CRS)
in Washington by Derek E. Mix entitled, “The United Kingdom: Background and
Relations with the United States”.
Indeed, I have it here before me with my notes scribbled all over
it. Now, I have known its author for
many years and like the work of friends I have known and worked with at CRS
over the years, such as Stan Sloane and Dick Grimmett, Derek’s paper is the
very epitome of balance and carefully-considered wording.

The paper makes every
effort to consider the Sspecial Rrelationship in the round. Britain remains an
important trading partner of the US, and there is no question that the
intelligence relationship is ‘Sspecial’ given the extremely unusual closeness
of the UK’s SIS and the US’s CIA/DIA/NSA.

However, it is the ‘defence-strategic’
Rrelationship which is the very pith of the Sspecialness of the Rrelationship. When Churchill coined the phrase “Special
Relationship” back in 1944 he understood both its strengths and weaknesses. From the very first meeting of the joint
chiefs of staff in January 1942 the Americans were in charge. However, Britain
(plus Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand et
imperia al offered immense power).
Those days are long gone but the central principle of the Rrelationship
was and is that Britain remain the most militarily powerful American ally, in
return for British influence over American policy and strategy. In other words, the Americans make the securing
of Britain’s global interest implicit in the City here cost-effective.

In his report Derek is also
scrupulous in his acknowledgement of the continued strength of the
Rrelationship. “U.S. and UK officials, from the cabinet-level down, consult
frequently and extensively on many global issues. American and British
diplomats report often turning to each other first when seeking to build
support for their respective positions in multilateral institutions or during
times of crisis…”

However, there can be
no doubt that the defence-strategic core of the Sspecial Rrelationship is under
the most intense pressure. In a January
2015 meeting President Obama and Prime Minister David Cameron went through the
usual rituals of ‘Sspecialness’, reaffirming mutual love and respect. Privately, President Obama pushed hard for
Cameron to commit to the NATO base defence-spending guideline of 2% of GDP. In spite of Cameron having lectured all other
NATO members about the need to meet that commitment at the September 2014 NATO
Wales Summit, Dave refused. The reason
is now clear; Cameron is making huge, unfunded domestic spending pledges (£8bn
for the NHS) as part of his Little
Britain election campaign, has protected so many other areas of
government-spending from spending cuts AND at the same time has promised to remove
Britain’s £90bn budget deficit by 2020 that something has to give. That ‘something’ is Britain’s defence budget. To be fair Ed Miliband is little better.

Cameron’s tenure as
prime minister has been pot-marked by strategic illiteracy. Indeed, ever since then Foreign Secretary
Hague’s May 2011 speech which asserted there would be no “strategic shrinkage”
under Cameron’s administration, Britain has been ‘shrinking’ alarmingly. Unfortunately, Cameron neither gets,
understands, nor seems to care about Britain’s place in the world, its
influence or indeed the maintenance of Britain’s ‘strategic brand’ essential to
the country’s security and defence.
Indeed, at no point in this election campaign has he even mentioned Britain
foreign and defence policy. It is one of
those areas off-limits, like Europe and immigration. As for a Cameron vision of
Britain in the twenty-first century world – forget it. This is bordering on criminal for a country
that is still one of the world’s top five powers. It is as though Cameron and
his cronies not only accept decline as given, but welcome it.

In the 2010 Strategic
Defence and Security Review Cameron made a contract with the British armed forces. Accept the 8-10% of funding cuts and the 30%
cuts in operational capability and from 2015 on real investment will take place
in the Future Force. Let me tell you
now; if Cameron is re-elected that contract will be broken in SDSR 2015 and the
next comprehensive spending review.

But here’s the rub;
Britain’s security and defence strategy pre-supposes a close relationship with
that of the United States. An
increasingly over-stretched America facing a burgeoning China, a revanchist,
unstable Russia and the rise of the Islamist anti-state is looking ever more to
its allies to ease the burden. Just at
the moment America needs Britain, Cameron’s Little
Britain is in danger of going AWOL.

Perhaps the most
telling comment in Derek’s excellent report is this: “In an increasingly “G-20
world”…the UK may not be viewed as centrally relevant to the United States in
all of the issues and relations considered a priority on the U.S. agenda”.

Cut Britain’s armed forces
further, Prime Minister and you will not only kill the Sspecial Rrelationship,
you will effectively remove the central assumption implicit in British security
and defence strategy – relevance to Washington.
Indeed, here’s a bit of ‘Strategy 101’ for you, Prime Minister. The reason for strong British armed forces is
not to rule the world but to influence Washington and to keep NATO relevant to
the Americans. You are about to destroy
both, if of course you are re-elected.

About Me

Julian Lindley-French is Senior Fellow of the Institute of Statecraft, Director of Europa Analytica & Distinguished Visiting Research Fellow, National Defense University, Washington DC. An internationally-recognised strategic analyst, advisor and author he was formerly Eisenhower Professor of Defence Strategy at the Netherlands Defence Academy,and Special Professor of Strategic Studies at the University of Leiden. He is a Fellow of Respublica in London, and a member of the Strategic Advisory Group of the Atlantic Council of the United States in Washington.
Latest books: The Oxford Handbook on War 2014 (Paperback) (2014; 709 pages). (Oxford: Oxford University Press) & "Little Britain? Twenty-First Strategy for a Middling European Power". (www.amazon.com)
The Friendly-Clinch Health Warning: The views contained herein are entirely my own and do not necessarily reflect those of any institution.